May 22, 2011

But even as we do all that’s necessary to ensure Israel’s security, even as we are clear-eyed about the difficult challenges before us, and even as we pledge to stand by Israel through whatever tough days lie ahead, I hope we do not give up on that vision of peace. For if history teaches us anything, if the story of Israel teaches us anything, it is that with courage and resolve, progress is possible. Peace is possible.

The Talmud teaches us that, “So long as a person still has life, they should never abandon faith.” And that lesson seems especially fitting today.

For so long as there are those across the Middle East and beyond who are standing up for the legitimate rights and freedoms which have been denied by their governments, the United States will never abandon our support for those rights that are universal.

And so long as there are those who long for a better future, we will never abandon our pursuit of a just and lasting peace that ends this conflict with two states living side by side in peace and security. This is not idealism; it is not naïveté.

113 comments:

Once again, Obama has drawn a line in the sand that Israel can't meet, shouldn't meet and was never expected to meet and now the Palestinians will use it as an excuse to continue to target civilians and refuse to negotiate.

Take a dry (and dishonest) speech and have it delivered by someone who only days earlier had as much as said the US had no interest in the preservation of Israel, and what do you get? No applause. No surprise. The surprise is that Jews keep supporting this dishonest president.

The Talmud teaches us that, “So long as a person still has life, they should never abandon faith.”

I hate--hate, hate, hate--the singular 'they.' But I know why his speechwriter did it: "he or she should never abandon faith" sounds clunky and "he" is sexist. The choice was to sound sexist or stupid and he deferred to the latter.

How about calling for the Palestinians to tone down the constant spew of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli venom? I don't mean ask them to stop it altogether as of course they pledged to do years ago because no one would take that seriously. But maybe, "Hey, guys, tone it down a bit?"

Even this backpedaling (a bit) today must encourage the Arabs...from the Israelis he demands concessions, from the Arabs...a willingness to take those concessions and offer a few words in English, immediately contradicted by everything they say in Arabic to each other.

But I do think the Israelis should make a confidence building concession. Here's a suggestion: Withdraw unconditionally from a chunk of the disputed territories, leaving behind...oh, I don't know, how about elaborate, state of the art greenhouses...and let the Palestinians show what they can do with a small piece so they can show how they'd handle a larger? Oh, wait...

And...it's just a fantasy, about as likely as the one I have about Lucy Lawless and...no need to go into that...how about saying something in particular about the PA allying with Hamas? I don't even suggest an actual sanction or withdrawal of money because, again, that's not a fantasy considering this administration, it's a delusion. Something, anything, to show the United States isn't happy about a genocidal group being granted legitimacy? Something?

The Talmud teaches us that, “So long as a person still has life, they should never abandon faith.”

What a strange passage to quote to the survivors of the Holocaust.

Yes, and to people who don't like your prescription for Israel because they are worried it will results in the death of the nation and all its people. No wonder there was no applause. I can't imagine WTF Obama is thinking, sometimes. He really thinks he can just say different things to different people and they will all eat it up.

No need to go there. He's just a leftist, with a standard set of leftist beliefs. Pushing Israel back to its 1967 borders is right up there with Green Energy and High Speed Choo-Choos as things that all right-thinking people believe.

That he got booed has got to have Demos scared purple. AIPAC may or may not be a big leader in Jewish opinion, but getting booed has to be setting off alarms in Congress.

Then again, all he wants to do is go back on what every US President since Truman has believed and sell the relatives of a lot of the people in that meeting to Reinhard and Heinrich's ideological descendants.

No biggie.

PS I've gotten to the point that I believe he thinks he can abuse the major Demo constituencies all he wants because they won't do anything. He's already down 20% of what his Hispanic support was.

If these people just stay home in '12, forget voting Republican, the Demos will be in the wilderness a long time.

Why is that weird, Ann, really. No applause. Why would anyone, anymore, with any idea of how this world works, applaud anything this most masterful of bullshiters bullshits. He's a fucking fraud and Bibi nailed him to the cross. And so AIPAC should just ignore that with 'polite' applause. Why? Why even politely endorse idiocy.

President Barack Obama defended his endorsement of Israel's 1967 boundaries as the basis for a future Palestine, telling America's pro-Israel lobby Sunday that his views reflected longstanding U.S. policy that needed to be stated clearly.

The truth is MIA when Hussein Obama spouts his newest spiel of hopey-changey. There IS peace through strength now. Obama says morality requires a renewal of war by Israel removing the strength from Israel and replacing with a total trust in Obama. That is actually hilarious. The AIPAC guys were bighting their tongues to not laugh out loud. The armistice line of 1949 was to pause the Jihad of extermination until Arab Armies built their reinforcements. In 1967 the Arabs started the war again and then the Armistice line moved east...and included the Old City of Jerusalem. Now that is falsely alleged to be occupied territory that must be surrendered, which is total bullshit. Obama has announced that he is the new Arafat.

Consider these facts: About 20% of Egypt's population used to be Coptic. Within a generation that number has fallen to 10%. I don't have the exact numbers but there has been a similar drop in the number of Palestinian Christians. These Christians were there before the Moslems and were, in many ways, the most productive members of their communities. Compare this with Israel. There are a great many Israeli Arabs, and their numbers are not decreasing but increasing. It would seem from this that Israelis are, in fact, more tolerant than their Arab brethren....But never underestimate the stupidity of the left, including, of course, its many Jewish members. Tony Judt used to preach for a one state solution: all the people of Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel in one happy democracy with religious rights guaranteed. Holy shit! How can intellectuals be so stupid. How can the Palestinians ever make peace with Israel if they cannot even make peace within their own divergent factions. I think militant Jews should wave housekeys from their lost homes in Bagdad and elsewhere and demand restitution.

NevadaBob...What is "bitch-slapping out of order house negroes" supposed to mean? You intrigue me, but I suspect that you still live in the old racist memes world. Thanks to the SOB Obama's election, we are no longer in bondage to fear of racial guilt manipulation.

I have to confess I do not understand the stalwart Jewish fealty to the Democrats who clearly despise them.

In a word: fear. Fear of rural traditional Christian Americans: the Republican Party, to Jews. Is this rational? Absolutely not. In fact it is ironic, in that Jews have no better friends in America than Christians, especially fundamentalist Christians. Matters not a whit. The feeling of dread cannot be overcome. Sophistication and smarts means not a thing up against a dread.

I am making a bet. I will delivery pizza to all who want to bet. There is no way - no way at all - that GOP can win the WH now. Daniels was the only shot. No more. The GOP will lose the House, too. So, 2012 will be like a nightmare. Because GOP has no vision/no diversity/no deliverables, Nov. 2012 will be like groundhog day - it will repeat every two years (2014, 2016, etc.).

The billion dollar question: Why are there GOP trying to run against Obama? Simple: They want exposure. They know they will lose. But, any publicity is a good publicity, just ask Gringich.

"There's this weird slough of no applause near the end of Obama's remarks to AIPAC."

No applause is good. Let's hope there wasn't any hand clapping because everyone in the room chose not to miss even a WORD that our President was saying.

He laid it on the line, and quite clearly. The USA will be with YOU, Israel. No matter what you decide.

"America’s commitment to Israel’s security flows from a deeper place — and that’s the VALUES WE SHARE. As two people who struggled to win our freedom against overwhelming odds, we understand that preserving the security for which our forefathers — and foremothers — fought must be the work of every generation. As two vibrant democracies, we recognize that the liberties and freedoms we cherish must be constantly nurtured."

Barrack was talking to his BROTHER, Bibi. Reminding him exactly how far they'd come because of their shared VALUES.

"Look, bro. I know and appreciate that we are in different places in our lives right now. You chose to live in a place that is far more dangerous. Unfortunately, BECAUSE it's a scary place, you can't relax long enough to even IMAGINE it might be otherwise.

First you put the lock on the door. Then you added a security system. And now? You go to bed with guns, only to dream of rockets hitting the place you and your family rest your heads at night.

This is living?

Look. Do not misunderstand me. I have the HIGHEST regard for you. You've taken the values we both learned, both know and understand to their core. Values that made us who we are. And now? You're moving to the very edge...

They also however huge in the Dem fund raising business (expects C4 here :(

Add in too the immense clout of Jews in the media. Not just news media but mass entertainment. The uncritical ride they gave Obama in 2008 was more important than even the money.

So why are those "plucky, noble Israelis" now globally despised after once commanding half the world's support up to the mid -70s? Support now dwindled down to America for alone in thrall to special interest foreign lobbies, and alone getting the special "as told by Jews themselves!" narrative in the media. Oh, yeah.... and a few small S Pacific islands bribed by the USA or Israel directly?

1. The world in the last 60 years has largely turned back colonialism and imperialism. Those colonized deeply resent that era, particulatly and with irony...if they screwed up after independence and are worse off. Most nations that practiced colonialism regret that history and think they have moved past it. Israel is the exception in the last 30 years, colonizing and ruling subject peoples in occupied lands. America, lacking colonialism and the blatant imperialism of Euros, Arabs, Japs, Chinese or being a victim of it - cannot understand. The only thing close in American consciousness is the slavery experience.

2. The recent history of other peoples is eliminating both internal aristocracies and alien economic elites. Jews are seen like the colonials, the overseas Chinese, even the Asians in Africa - a rootless cosmopolitan class that takes at the cost of native populations and will control too much power and wealth unless checked.

3. America alone was thought to be so powerful that they were the place the pure as snow Israel myth propaganda should be focused on. The only country that Christian Zionism was thought possible to cultivate by real Zionists in low education level internal US fundie cultures. At the same time, no group holds the Christian Zionists tools in greater contempt than the Jewish Elites that helped foster the movement that tied salvation of the soul to devotion to a non-Christian foreign nation.

4. Particularly in Europe, great resentment that Jews and the state of Israel have sued anyone and everyone they could think of for 60 years for reparations and to reimburse Jews for lands, property, and businesses lost in war and dislocation. All while the Zionists have fought giving a shekel to the Palestinians suffering the same consequences of war, seized wealth, and cleansings.

5. Historical perception of Jews as trouble-makers, rapacious for others fruits of labor and power, predatory people with certain gifts they bring, but certain dangers. Others in history have had that reputation. The Roma, the Tinkers, the mafia. All regularly have been thrown out of countries for being undesirables. In part - the perceptions may be exaggerated....not all Roma are con artists...but enough are the pattern of acceptance then locals becoming sick of them is a cycle.

As far as I can tell, when King Abdullah of Jordan was with Obama last week, their public comments did not reflect a conversation in which Obama pushed Jordan to finally accept Palestinian people, as they were originally supposed to do.

Meanwhile, all the words in the world aren't an appropriate defense. The arabs still hate the USA. And, we tossed our reputation to the 4-winds.

So, up ahead, in September, the UN will vote to give the palestinians a state. While there isn't enough wheat in egypt to feed people.

By the way, come November 2012, Obama has no coattails. And, winning, while losing Congress. And, states seek republican leadership. Exactly how does Obama keep throwing money out to the UN and the IMF? Beats me. I don't think he can do it.

"This is not idealism; it is not naïveté." No, it is stupidity and insipidity.

Obama said there has been a "Teutonic" shift in Middle East. If there were a prize for Freudian slips he would take the cake. He then goes on to say that the Palestinians must have "contiguous" borders. He either doesn't know what the word means or he has never looked at a map because connecting Gaza and the West Bank would literally cut Israel in half. I know he does not mean the Palestinians must give one of the areas up.

And to complete the trifecta of complete idiocy, in his AIPAC speech he says in one paragraph that a nation cannot be expected to negotiate with a terrorist entity sworn to its destruction and in the very next paragraph he contradicts himself by saying Israel must negotiate with the Hamas/Fatah monstrosity.

And he does this stuff all the time. I try not to listen to the guy but he contradicts himself in almost every speech I have seen him give.

Someone once said that Bob Dylan or some other famous artist would intentionally give poor performances just to see if his audience was stupid enough to still heap praise upon him. I would like to think Obama is doing the same but I know he is nowhere near bright enough or self-aware enough to pull it off.

But hey, at least he learned a couple of new words and got a history lesson from the Israelis. At $1.5 trillion/yr and counting this has to be the most expensive education in the history of the world.

ricpic said...I have to confess I do not understand the stalwart Jewish fealty to the Democrats who clearly despise them.

In a word: fear. Fear of rural traditional Christian Americans: the Republican Party, to Jews. Is this rational? Absolutely not. In fact it is ironic, in that Jews have no better friends in America than Christians, especially fundamentalist Christians. Matters not a whit. The feeling of dread cannot be overcome.========================Garbage. The Jews are mostly progressives. They want socialism, politics of victimhood by race/class/gender. Transnationalism, post communism. but with a strong central government they can be viziers in like they were in the Ottoman and Soviet Empires.With wise people having the power at the top to properly guide the ignorant proletariate, the noble but intellectually limited Negro and other brown people they wish to get into America and Europe in the tens of millions to vote right.. Namely, them, the well-set artistocracy of the owners and professionals. Who run much of the Democrat Party.

Nor do Jews who vote 75-90% Democratic and donate to DEms in the same percent and give Dems the more positive media spin 90% of the time FEAR fundie Christian Zionists.

They DESPISE the ignorant tools. The level of CONTEMPT they have for the likes of Sarah Palin with her stupid little American and Israel flags on her governors desk is rabid. Higher than any other American demographic.(This BTW, is not unknown in other historical situations where like the Zionists - the Romans, the Caliphs, the Brits, Russians, Japs - found willing tools to be their informers, advocates, fight their wars for them....all the while holding the Janissaries, barbarians in thrall to Rome, the Selaous Scouts, IRA informers, Korean auxillary troops, Stalin's Belarussian and Chechen thugs ...beneath contempt.

If the world really loves President Obama now, wait until he gets his second term. Executive Orders will be the order of the day and Congress will be told to "bugger off" for a while. Obama's demonstrated so far that his well stated plans for his country have been held in check only because of his hopes for a second term, IMHO.

In fact, that second term can begin in 2013, or 2017, or any other year. And, if anyone doubts that Obama has been unlike any other president of the USA, even unlike Jimma Carter, wait until you see Obama Second Term; The Won One.

MAYBEE SAID: "As far as I can tell, when King Abdullah of Jordan was with Obama last week, their public comments did not reflect a conversation in which Obama pushed Jordan to finally accept Palestinian people, as they were originally supposed to do.

The Palestinian refugees have been treated better in Jordan than in any other Arab country.

"1,951,603 Palestinian refugees are located in Jordan, of whom 338,000 are still living in refugee camps.[30] Following Jordan's annexation of the West Bank, most Palestinian refugees were granted Jordanian citizenship. The percentage of Palestinian refugees living in refugee camps to those who settled outside the camps is the lowest of all UNRWA fields of operations. Palestinian refugees are allowed access to public services and healthcare, as a result, refugee camps are becoming more of poor city suburbs than refugee camps. Most refugees moved out of the camps to other parts of the country reducing the number of refugees in need of UNRWA services to only 338,000. This caused UNRWA to reduce the budget allocated to Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. Former UNRWA chief-attorney James G. Lindsay says: "In Jordan, where 2 million Palestinian refugees live, all but 167,000 have citizenship, and are fully eligible for government services including education and health care." Lindsay suggests that eliminating services to refugees whose needs are subsidized by Jordan "would reduce the refugee list by 40%."

Shiloh shows his ignorance: And the '67 (6) day war was kinda interesting as it was Israel using U.S. made weapons/armament/aircraft vs. Egypt using U.S. made weapons/armament/aircraft.

In the Six-Day War the IDF used primarily Belgian-made small arms, British-made tanks modified by the Israelis with new engines and 105mm guns, and French aircraft. They did have a few American tanks -- M4 Shermans some modernized with new engines and guns. These tanks weren't donated or sold to Israel by the US; they were salvaged from the British Mandate forces.

The Egyptian and Syrian were armed almost exclusively by the Soviet Union. The Jordanians used a mix of British and Russian equipment.

Egypt using U.S. made weapons/armament/aircraftEgypt had Soviet weapons and training until after the '73 war. Don't try to impress us with your ignorance, there's no need.

Weinberger famously said of the Iran-Iraq War, it's too bad they can't both lose. If you remember, the Israelis were secretly selling weapons to Iran to keep the war going and their enemies occupied, and they got McFarlane to get better American weapons/spare parts, leading to Iran-Contra. Cue Cedarford.

Presidents can't get away with saying different things to different audiences. He would have learned that in the primaries if the media wasn't covering for him.

He ends up looking like a jihadi leader giving speeches in English about the need for negotiation while chanting "death to the Jews" in Arabic. AIPAC supporters are too well versed in the PR game to fall for such a pathetically naive tactic. I wonder which genius in the White House thought this would help. I suppose they knew it wouldn't work at AIPAC; rather the goal was to create a talking point for Obama's leftist supporters. Now they can claim he "reached out" or cite his comments even though everyone knows they mean absolutely nothing.

Techtonic, teutonic--what do you get from a dude that doesnt speak austrian.

I thought his major premise was that a new initiative was made more likely by the "teutonic" shift in the arab world--Since we really dont know what the outcome of that shift might be, perhaps it would have been better to just refer to long standing US policy and leave the discussion of particulars to the diplomats.

I've always found it interesting that although a roughly equal number of Jews and Arabs were displaced in 1948 during the creation of Israel and the first Arab-Israeli War, the Arabs (and their descendents) are still considered refugees to this day, whereas the the Jews aren't.

Google "Israeli settlements" and look at the maps and you will see why "the occupied territories" will remain "the occupied territories" until the demographics catch up and Israel becomes one single non-denominational state.

The Likud governments have made certain that a segregated 2-state solution is no longer possible.

Dammit. I wish I could remember what show it was when they showed clips and interviewed attendees about his speech ~ I think CBS weekend news. But the very first numbnut they interviewed for the piece was like, "Oh, I think he hit it out of the park!" Had major dad and me scratching our heads. The second fellow on was nowhere near as impressed, and now all this is dribbling forth. Of course, not on the NATIONAL news, mind you.

The Palestinian refugees have been treated better in Jordan than in any other Arab country.

What a low bar!But still, Obama has decided he needs to tell leaders in the region what they need to do to create peace- being honest with friends, etc.Jordan can help. Jordan must help. But Obama didn't feel like he needed to tell King Abdullah hard truths in public.

I always wonder why people are so credulous. If someone lies to you time after time, why should you be reassured when he tells you what you want to hear? But American Jews want to think that Obama cares for them. After all they have been loyal Democrats even longer than blacks. They have given him huge sums of money. They approve of his domestic politics. The speech to AIPAC was what they wanted to hear, even if it contradicts pretty much everything he has said and done about Israel.

The people who live in reality, look at what he does. They look at who he hangs around with. They look at who he appoints. If he says something that is not in line with his actions, his friends or his appointees, you can be fairly sure that he's lying.

The Obama who gave the speech last Thursday about Israel's 1967 borders was the Obama that's in line with his actions and his friends. The speech he gave to AIPAC was not.

Except ... except ... remember that Obama can't help himself when he has the ability to give somebody the finger while telling us he's only scratching his nose.

So on RealClearPolitics I saw this little gem. "As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself – by itself – against any threat." Read that again: "Israel must be able to defend itself – by itself"

That can be read either as a ringing endorsement of a militarily strong Israel, able to fight off all the Arab armies arrayed against it all by itself, or it could be the kiss-off. It's either the middle finger or Obama scratching his nose.

My interpretation: don't expect any help from the Obama administration if several hundred million Arabs decide to invade. Obama is a big fan of the Europeans who regard Israel as a "shitty little country." For Obama, the end of Israel would eliminate lots of problems.

It may be pointed out that for the first 30 years of its existence, 1948-77, Israel generally was not in sync with Washington, DC about policy, and got little help from that quarter. Yet the Israelis managed to do quite well for themselves through three celebrated wars and a number of minor scrapes.

(When they could not get miltary planes from the US or Europe, they even builkt their own jetfighters, and quite good ones, though why they would name their fighter plane for cultured buttermilk is a puzzle for me.)

I think it might be worth thinking about, whether Israel stii would have been better off if they had continued to rely on their own efforts.

When I was a baby accountant in the 1970's I worked in a lot of joints in the garment center. There were many, many guys who had tattoo's and stories they didn't want to talk about. This one guy made linings for fur coats. Imagine that. Fur coats were real popular then and you could make a business over just making the silk linings for them.

Anyway he had only two statementsabout politicians. "He is good for the Jews. Or "He is bad for the Jews."

Pogo said, "I have to confess I do not understand the stalwart Jewish fealty to the Democrats who clearly despise them."

Me neither.

I must also confess that I struggle to determine Obama's true motivations for his policies and speeches as of late. Is he really that ignorant of history, economics, and human nature or does he just hate freedom and those who love freedom?

How quickly Trooper forgets history--here is the quoteUltimately, Israelis and Palestinians must address the core issues that divide them if there is to be a real peace, resolving all claims and ending the conflict between them. This means that the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 will be ended through a settlement negotiated between the parties, based on U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, with Israeli withdrawal to secure and recognize borders